Operation Matador was a

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

plan in 1975 to utilize the recovery vessel ''

Glomar Explorer ''GSF Explorer'', formerly USNS ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' (T-AG-193), was a deep-sea drillship platform built for Project Azorian, the secret 1974 effort by the United States Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division to recove ...

'' to recover the remainder of the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

submarine ''K-129'' left on the sea floor by the earlier

Project Azorian Project Azorian (also called "Jennifer" by the press after its Classified information in the United States#Top Secret, Top Secret Security Collateral clearance, Compartment) was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sun ...

. The operation was never conducted. A discussion about the operation was recorded on March 19, 1975 in the Cabinet Room of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

. President Gerald Ford, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, Philip Buchen (Counsel to the President), John O. Marsh, Jr. (Counselor to the President), Ambassador Donald Rumsfeld, Lt. General

Brent Scowcroft Brent Scowcroft (; March 19, 1925August 6, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer who was a two-time United States National Security Advisor, first under U.S. President Gerald Ford and then under George H. W. Bush. He served as Military As ...

(Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs), and

William Colby William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976. During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...

( Director of Central Intelligence) discussed the operation and the leak to the press about "Project Jennifer" (as it was then known). During the meeting, the director of CIA, William Colby proposed to keep the operation secret, saying: The result of the meeting was to stonewall, after which the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' published a four-page story the next day by Jack Nelson with the headline, "Administration Won't Talk About Sub Raised by CIA." The document that identified "Operation Matador" as the subject of the cabinet meeting was made public by the National Security Archive (

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

) on June 15, 2012.Document Friday: The Origins of “Glomar” Declassified
William Burr, June 15, 2012.

References

{{Central Intelligence Agency Central Intelligence Agency operations

See also

References